Connersville, Indiana, sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a — a range where zone-matched perennials and frost-aware annual timing set what succeeds.
Reliable performers under these conditions include cabbage, hazelnut, lavender, and collard greens; what your own ground favors still comes down to its soil, sun, and drainage.
Even in Connersville, no two yards are alike.
A low spot, a south-facing slope, or a stand of trees moves the frost date and sun across a single Connersville lot. Enter your address and we'll score 1,086 plants against your land's actual soil, sun, and frost.
We read public map data around Connersville — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
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Connersville — the short answer
Connersville, Indiana: USDA zone 6a, about 208 days between hard freezes, across 5K acres of city.
- USDA zone
- 6a
- USDA PHZM 2023
- Last hard freeze (28°F)
- Apr 6
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- First hard freeze (28°F)
- Oct 31
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- Days between freezes
- ~208
- NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals, 28°F — this town
- City area
- 5K acres
- US Census TIGER/Line 2025
Every figure names the dataset it came from. Hard-freeze dates are this town’s own 28°F normals: light frosts run a few weeks past them, and tender transplants usually wait 2–3 weeks after the last hard freeze.
Hardiness Zone Range
Zone 6a is Connersville's average, not your lot's — a low corner or a tree line moves it. Against Connersville's 208-day season, see what your own ground reads.
Soil varies lot by lot — soil types explained.
What this means for growing in Connersville
Each reading below is measured for Connersville itself — here is what it means for a garden here, and the move an experienced grower makes about it.
Season length
MeasuredConnersville runs about 208 days between hard freezes — a long growing season.
There is slack for succession plantings and slow-finishing crops: many vegetables can be sown twice, and the heat-lovers have time to ripen fully.
Plan a second sowing of quick crops after the first comes out, and use the fall window most gardeners let sit idle.
NOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
Winter hardiness
MeasuredConnersville sits in USDA hardiness zone 6a.
The zone sets which perennials, shrubs, and fruit trees live through an average winter here — a plant rated for a colder zone is a safe bet, one rated warmer needs winter protection or gets treated as an annual.
Match perennials and fruit to the zone before you buy, so nothing you plant is a gamble against the cold.
USDA PHZM 2023
The kind of country Connersville is in
Connersville sits in the Eastern Corn Belt Plains — EPA Level III, inside the wider Eastern Temperate Forests. That is read at Connersville's own centroid rather than borrowed from Fayette County.
What Grows in Connersville
Every plant below cleared Connersville's own zone 6a and its 208-day season. Each card opens that plant's Indiana profile. How we score.
Is it too late to plant in Connersville?
Usually not — gardeners here simply switch what goes in the ground as the season moves. Cool-season crops can go in from around Mar 9; tender transplants wait until two to three weeks after the last 28°F hard freeze, which lands near Apr 6 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals); and from midsummer, planting counts back from the first fall freeze around Oct 31 — long-season crops need about 90 days of runway, quick greens only 30. Here the season winds down slowly: late sowings, a real autumn harvest, and garlic in the ground before the first hard freeze.
Documented around Connersville
Survey cells within 31 miles of Connersville checked for spotted lanternfly, none carrying a detection — a surveyed negative, not an absence of looking. Nearest documented record 44 miles off. What to watch for.
What's on the federal record near Connersville
Closest first, within ~10 miles of Connersville. Listing isn't leaking, and distance isn't exposure.
- FRIGIDAIRE COToxics Release Inventory · 750 ft
- CONNERSVILLE INDUSTRIAL CENTERUnderground Storage Tanks · 750 ft
- H H ROBERTSON COBrownfields · 1300 ft
- INLAND SOUTHERN CORPToxics Release Inventory · 1400 ft
- BROWNFIELDS II, LLCBrownfields · 1500 ft
- BROWNFIELDS II, LLCToxics Release Inventory · 1500 ft
- BROWNFIELDS II LLCUnderground Storage Tanks · 1500 ft
- IW-7 CONNERSVILLE, IND.Nitrate · 1900 ft
- Grand Avenue 76 Service StationUnderground Storage Tanks · 1900 ft
- Spiveys GarageUnderground Storage Tanks · 2000 ft
- Stant Manufacturing IncorporatedUnderground Storage Tanks · 2100 ft
- STANT USA CORPORATIONToxics Release Inventory · 2100 ft
6 more sites are on the record inside the same radius. See them on the map
Measured from Connersville's center, not your beds. Run your own address for what's upwind of you specifically.
Environmental Intelligence
The counts behind that headline — every source type on the record near Connersville.
Total Sites
155
within ~10 miles of Connersville
Risk Level
Elevated
Highest-severity
1 Superfund site (none NPL-listed)
Sources Checked
within ~10 miles of Connersville
Severity Distribution
within ~10 miles of Connersville
Highest-Severity Sites
A note from Gnorman
What an experienced grower watches for around here
In and around Connersville, Toxics Release Inventory runs higher than the national average — 13 sites within ~10 miles of Connersville. That's not a problem with your land — it's information about it.
Toxics Release Inventory: TRI facilities report annual chemical releases to air, water, and land.
Check prevailing wind direction — downwind parcels face higher exposure than upwind or crosswind locations.
Check your specific parcel in Connersville
Get exact proximity distances to contamination sources for your specific parcel — plus soil, sun, drainage, and 1,086 plant recommendations.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Connersville average
Your land is one point inside Connersville
Everything above resolves to Connersville as a whole — one PHZM band and one 28°F frost record, read across 5K acres. Your parcel is one point inside that footprint. Slope, tree cover, a low spot that pools cold air, and what is in the soil are all resolved at the address, and none of them are visible at city scale. That is the honest boundary of this page, and the reason the next step is a reading of your own ground rather than a better local average.
Your Lot vs the Connersville Average
Connersville Average
- ●USDA Zones 6a, averaged across Connersville
- ●One soil character for all of Connersville
- ●Frost dates read at Connersville's scale: Apr 6 to Oct 31
YOUR Parcel
- ✓Your exact zone, not Connersville's 6a
- ✓Your SSURGO soil type & pH
- ✓Your sun exposure, cast in 3D
See MY Growing Report
Read your specific parcel in Connersville
Pull a site-specific report for your exact address in Connersville, Indiana — soil, sun, drainage, frost risk, and scored plant recommendations.
Three things about your lot that Connersville averages can't show:
We read public map data around Connersville — soil, climate, flood, and parcel records. How we handle your address.
25+ data sources read at your address, not the Connersville average
How we know this about Connersville
The datasets: hardiness from the USDA ARS Plant Hardiness Zone Map 2023, read at this city’s own centroid; hard-freeze dates from NOAA 1991–2020 28°F normals at Connersville’s own record; boundaries and acreage from US Census TIGER/Line 2025; the contamination records from the federal sources named in their beats above. Soil is not read at city grain anywhere on this page — there is no city-resolution survey in our data, which is why you will find no soil grid here rather than a statewide one wearing a local label. The resolution ledger below names every figure this page inherited.
Common questions about Connersville
When does frost risk typically end in Connersville?
The last hard freeze (28°F) in Connersville typically lands around Apr 6, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — earlier than the light-frost dates most charts quote. That marks the hard freeze, not the last light frost — lighter frosts keep biting past it, which is why tender transplants here wait until about Apr 27.
When is the first frost in Connersville?
The first hard freeze (28°F) in Connersville typically arrives around Oct 31, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals — the point tender summer crops finish. Lighter frosts run ahead of it, near Oct 17, so the watching starts about Oct 1 — about 208 days after the spring freeze cleared.
How long is the growing season in Connersville?
Measured between 28°F hard freezes, Connersville sees about 208 frost-free days — roughly Apr 6 through Oct 31, per NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals. Tender crops work a shorter one: nearer Apr 27 to Oct 17, about 173 days.
Is the soil safe to grow vegetables in Connersville?
The federal record around Connersville is a meaningful one — 155 documented sites, mostly Underground Storage Tanks entries (89), the nearest Toxics Release Inventory record about 0.1 miles out — so a soil test before new food beds is a sensible precaution here, not a reason to hold back from growing. Remember that proximity to a documented site is information, not a diagnosis of any one yard; the contamination map shows exactly what sits where.
How do I protect my plants from frost in Connersville?
From about Oct 1 the job here turns from planting to protecting — the last start even a 30-day crop can finish. As the season closes around the first 28°F hard freeze near Oct 31 (NOAA 1991–2020 climate normals), three moves buy time: row cover or an old sheet over tender plants on still, clear nights; water the soil the afternoon before a freeze, so it holds warmth overnight; and harvest tomatoes, peppers and basil before Oct 31. Hardy greens and roots shrug off light frost and sweeten after it — leave them in.
Everything above is measured at Connersville's scale — its 6a band and its 208-day season. Your yard writes its own version of Connersville's numbers: we read soil, sun, drainage and frost at your exact address. Try it for 14 days — no card required.
What this page reads at Connersville’s own scale
7 of the readings below were taken at Connersville's own scale — its own ~208-day season between 28°F freezes, the 4,970 acres it covers and 155 documented sites around it; 4 are borrowed from a wider read, named and linked below.
Measured here
- Connersville's own USDA hardiness band, zones 6aUSDA PHZM 2023
- Connersville's own 28°F hard-freeze dates, about Apr 6 and Oct 31 and the ~208-day span between themNOAA 1991–2020 Climate Normals
- 155 documented contamination sites on the federal record near Connersville, the closest Toxics Release Inventory record about 0.1 miles out from the town centreFederal environmental registers
- Connersville's boundary and the 4,970 acres inside itUS Census TIGER/Line 2025
- Which of 1,086 plants clear zones 6a and a ~208-day seasonGrowable Ground crop-matching engine
- The ecoregion at Connersville's own centroid, the Eastern Corn Belt PlainsUS EPA Level III Ecoregions
- Lanternfly survey cells around Connersville checked, none carrying a detectionlydemapr (De Bona & Helmus), 10 km survey lattice
Inherited from a wider read
- Soil character — no town-scale survey exists, so Connersville's 4,970 acres read through its county's SSURGO summaryfrom Fayette County
- Growing-degree days and winter chill — measured county-wide only, so the county page carries themfrom Fayette County
- The growing challenges every Indiana grower plans around — written at state scale, so they stay on the state guidefrom Indiana
- Butterfly and beetle records, and the farmland pesticide estimate — all published county-widefrom Fayette County
What this page can’t tell you
- The soil pH, drainage, sun hours, and frost pockets on any one lot among Connersville's 4,970 acreswhy one lot differs from the next →
- Which side of Connersville you're on — a low spot frosts first and a south wall warms early, and one normal is being asked to speak for all 4,970 acresreading your own microclimate →
- How close that record sits to YOUR lot — the closest Toxics Release Inventory record about 0.1 miles out, measured from the town centrehow we read the record →
- Where cold air settles, which slopes face the sun, and which way the wind runs on your own ground — measured at your address, and averaged away by any Connersville-wide figureread your own land →
More in Indiana
Wider growing context
What grows across IndianaConnersville sits outside our named growing regions, so Indiana as a whole is its closest context here.
Nearby growing guides